Security Weekly Podcast Network (Audio)

Interview with Keith Hollender, CEO and Co-Founder of Arcova
Why AI Security Is Becoming an Execution Problem, Not Just a Governance Problem
As enterprises move from AI experimentation to adoption at scale, security leaders are under pressure to enable innovation without introducing unmanaged risk. The challenge is no longer whether organizations should pursue AI, but how they can govern it, secure it, and operationalize it in ways that stand up to real-world business and threat conditions.
In this conversation, Keith Hollender discusses what Arcova is seeing across enterprise environments as organizations work to connect cybersecurity, AI governance, resilience, and broader transformation priorities. He explores where companies are getting stuck, why traditional siloed approaches are falling short, and what it takes to move from strategy decks to secure execution.
Keith also shares how Arcova’s practitioner-led, relationship-driven model helps organizations turn complexity into clarity by embedding with client teams, solving urgent problems hands-on, and building capabilities designed to last. The conversation also covers Arcova’s continued growth, including expansion into the Middle East, and what global demand signals reveal about the next phase of cybersecurity and AI consulting.
Segment Resources:
https://arcova.com/sectors/
https://arcova.com/category/blog/
For more information about Arcova and how they can help your enterprise shape what's next, please visit:
https://securityweekly.com/arcova
Topic: CMMC Pause creating chaos among federal contractors
This one sent some shockwaves through the CMMC community, particularly the hundreds or thousands of folks gearing up to assist with the validation that phase 2 aimed to provide. The TL;DR - defense contractors have been required to comply with CMMC controls for years, but self-attestation means that many probably haven't been meeting the requirements. Perhaps, rather than have tons of defense contractors fail the test, they just suspended the requirement for the test itself.
I think Howard Holton nails it here when he says:
"100,000 defense contractors needed third-party assessments. Roughly 100 authorized assessors exist. That's 1,000 assessments each, with the deadline in November."
PCI already created a model that works for a scenario like this. If you're small, you self-assess. If you're big enough, an independent auditor comes to check you out once a year. I'm sure they were probably aware of this and chose not to go down that path for some reasons. I'm not aware of those reasons.
What this means:
Phase II is paused
Phase I self-assessments still in place (note, however, that phase II existed, because self-attestation didn't work)
NIST SP 800-171 Rev 2 and DFARS 252.204-7012 compliance still required
60-day review aims to reform CMMC
DoW opened an RFI for industry perspectives on what they should do
CMMC characterized as a "compliance burden" and "red tape"
False Claims Act and DOJ's cyber-fraud enforcement are still on the table
More resources:
CIO Davies' post on Twitter
Administrator of the Small Business Administration, Kelly Loeffler's post
A useful LinkedIn post that breaks down a lot of what this really means (and doesn't)
Weekly Enterprise News
Finally, in the enterprise security news,
will AI eliminate more cybersecurity jobs than it creates?
Linus’s law, amended
the biggest patch Tuesday ever
AI context bombs
AI workflows are a security disaster
people using AI in areas they don’t understand
ransomware crews are hitting legal firms hard
lessons learned from CISA’s recent github leak
demystify your USB cables!
All that and more, on this episode of Enterprise Security Weekly.
Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/esw for all the latest episodes!
Show Notes: https://securityweekly.com/esw-468

M. Thénardier, LastPass, GitHub, EBS, Spirals, Pegasus, Shaft, Josh Marpet, and More on this episode of the Security Weekly News.
Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/swn for all the latest episodes!
Show Notes: https://securityweekly.com/swn-599

This week, our technical segment covers a new open-source tool written by Paul (and Claude) that helps you keep your Linux systems up to date and assess supply chain risks. It's called "fettle" and is a pure Python implementation that gives you even more features than previously discussed! Then in the security news:
The GodDamn Ransomware
CMMC suspended
Holy Microsoft Tuesday!
Lessons learned
Without the Internet, do we still get water?
The forgotten shims
More than two BIOS passwords
Cracking firmware encryption with Claude
1999 called, and it wants its "Exploits" back
Prompt injection for defenders
Grok has your repo
You're not going to outpatch AI
Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/psw for all the latest episodes!
Show Notes: https://securityweekly.com/psw-935

More than 48,000 vulnerabilities were disclosed in 2025, yet only about 1% are actively exploited. However, you’re expected to mitigate all vulnerabilities, or at least critical and high. But what if there is no patch to fix the vulnerability or the software is unsupported?
Ben Lipcynski, Director Security and Regulatory Services at Optima, joins Business Security Weekly to discuss how organizations can take back control of your enterprise software. OPTAS — Origina Proactive Threat Assurance Service — predicts, validates, prioritizes, and mitigates threats specific to your environment. Unlike AI vulnerability tools that flag everything without context or mitigation guidance, OPTAS cuts through the noise. OPTAS helps security teams focus on the risks that matter instead of chasing the 99% that do not.
Segment Resources: - https://www.origina.com/optas#optas-overview
This segment is sponsored by Origina. Visit https://securityweekly.com/origina to request a consultation.
In the leadership and communications segment, US enterprises incorporate cyber risk into larger strategic focus, 75% of CISOs Fear Executives Don’t Understand Cybersecurity Risks, AI agents are not your “coworkers”, and more!
Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/bsw for all the latest episodes!
Show Notes: https://securityweekly.com/bsw-456

Mr. Data, Joomla Babooa, 1VPNS, RabbitMQ, UEFI, Center 16, Sextortion, Aaran Leyland, and More on the Security Weekly News.
Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/swn for all the latest episodes!
Show Notes: https://securityweekly.com/swn-598